 St. Louis Cardinals first to reach World Series!
Nederlands
 ST. LOUIS, Missouri (USA) -
Back home in Busch Stadium in St. Louis, the St. Louis Cardinals left no doubt of its intentions on Friday-evening (October 18) in Game 6 of the best-of-seven National League Championship Series.
The team rallied for four runs in the third inning and added five in the fifth at bat to win 9-0 vs. Los Angeles Dodgers.
With this, the Cards won the series 4-2 and became the first team to clinch the World Series.
This will the fourth World Series for the Cardinals in 10 years and 19th time in club-history.
The team last played in the Series in 2011 when it won the championship by beating Texas Rangers 4-3.
Cardinal-starter Michael Wacha dominated in seven innings, giving up only two basehits.
The 22-year old rookie was named Most Valuable Player of the Championship Series.
He became the youngest MVP Award-winner since Steve Avery (Atlanta Braves) in 1991, who was 21.
Wacha is the fourth rookie in history to be named MVP in a postseason series.
Pitcher Livan Hernandez (Florida Marlins) won the MVP twice in 1997, in the NLCS and World Series.
Wacha gave up a lead-off single to Carl Crawford in the first inning, but the Cardinals then turned a double play.
The righthander then retired eight batters in a row, before walking Crawford to start the fourth inning.
He then retired the next six batters again.
In the sixth, he gave up his second basehit, a lead-off double by A.J. Ellis, but then three outs followed again.
Wacha then retired the side once more in the seventh inning.
Rookies Carlos Martinez and Trevor Rosenthal respectively pitched the eighth and ninth inning for the Cardinals.
Clayton Kershaw started for the Dodgers.
In the first inning, he gave up an one-out double to Carlos Beltran, who will play for the first time in the World Series in his 16-year career.
Kershaw then gave up a 2-out single to Shane Robinson in the second inning, who then advanced to third base on two wild pitches, but was left.
The Cardinals then struck in the third inning.
With one out, Matt Carpenter doubled and then Carlos Beltran batted in the first run with a single.
Moments later, Beltran scored himself on a 2-out single by Yadier Molina, who then advanced on a single by David Freese.
After the bases got loaded when Matt Adams walked, Shane Robinson added another runscoring single.
On his basehit, Molina and Frees scored to make it 4-0.
A 5-run rally followed in the fifth inning.
Molina and Freese led off with singles, then the first scored when Matt Adams followed with a double.
This led to the departure of Kershaw, who was relieved by Ronald Belisario.
Freese was then thrown out at home on a grounder by Shane Robinson and led to runners on second and third base.
Next, a force play was created by walking Pete Koza intentionally.
Hereafter, a run was scored on a fielder's choice-grounder by pitcher Michael Wacha and left the bases loaded.
J.J. Howell then took over the pitching for Belisario.
He gave up a sacrifice fly to Matt Carpenter, then a wild pitch and a single by Carlos Beltran contributed to the next runs to increase the lead to 9-0.
(October 18)
| 
